Ari Folman’s bold and ambitious but flawed vision of the future as seen in “The Congress” is a vision of two halves. The first half sees Robin Wright, star of such films as “The Princess Bride” and “Forrest Gump,” playing Robin Wright, star of such films as “The Princess Bride” and “Forrest Gump.” Only here, in an alternative present, she’s a little more washed up than in our reality: introduced as her agent, played by Harvey Keitel, chastises her poor career choices and difficult attitude, she’s out of work with no one willing to offer her a role. Jeff Green (Danny Huston), the slithering bigwig of the mischievously named Miramount Studios, gives her an offer: in exchange for a hefty sum, her body will be scanned, and her image, her voice, her emotions, and her very being will be uploaded into a computer system, to be used to star in any film they choose. The catch is that while the computer-generated Robin Wright stars in everything from sci-fi blockbusters to Oscar contenders, the real Robin Wright is not allowed to act in anything again for the rest of her life.
The second half sends us 20 years into the future, where an older Wright takes a drug and enters a strange cartoon world, a 2D-animated, psychedelic, pop culture dreamscape where people are not so much people as fantasy avatars. Take a stroll through this hand-drawn gallery of famous faces and you will see such surreal sights as the jackal-headed Egyptian god Anubis walking the streets alongside Elvis Presley and Queen Elizabeth I, a Tom Cruise caricature who’s nothing but a pair of sunglasses and a toothy grin, and Ron Jeremy motorboating Marilyn Monroe. This world, it transpires, is an illusory escape from the bleakness of reality, where many are starving and living in horrible poverty. The people of the future are given a choice: await death or hallucinate something better. Understandably, most choose the hallucination -- and who can blame them when Michael Jackson is serving up lobsters?
I’m not certain that these two halves fit together very well: the film begins as a scathing take-down of the Hollywood system and the soulless direction it’s supposedly headed, then once the animation kicks in, it suddenly shifts gears to a commentary on such topics as the inequality gap, dictatorships, celebrities as products, and the American healthcare system. Combined, they make for a film whose themes are rich but jumbled and whose structure is uneven. Individually, however, they’re fascinating. The second half, in particular, is enthrallingly berserk, an absorbing, kaleidoscopic head trip that’s crudely drawn yet has a fluid, luscious beauty. The first half is also absorbing, a sharp, subtly sci-fi inflected big-studio satire well performed by Wright, Huston, and Keitel, who together make up the three pillars of Hollywood: the actor, the studio, and the agent in between. For a follow-up to “Waltz with Bashir,” Folman’s animated documentary about his experiences as an Israeli infantry soldier, “The Congress” is certainly unexpected, though like it, it shows him as an innovative director with a vision that’s unique, uncompromising, and well worth a watch.
Rating: 7/10
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